Financial burden of severe childhood illness on households in Lao People's Democratic Republic: A prospective cohort study.

ABSTRACT: Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) introduced a National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme in 2016 to all provinces except Vientiane Capital City. We describe the financial impact on households related to treatment of severe childhood illness at a hospital covered by NHI, and one without NHI. We conducted a prospective cohort study (2022-2024) in Lao PDR of children aged one month to <15 years admitted with severe illness at Salavan Provincial Hospital (SPH) with NHI, and National Children's Hospital (NCH) without NHI, with two-month follow-up post-discharge. Illness-related direct and indirect costs were collected. We calculated household out-of-pocket (OOP) costs, impoverishment and catastrophic health expenditure (CHE, > 10% annual household expenditure) rates and analysed relative risk

SUBMITTER: Quach A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12923058 | biostudies-literature | 2026

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature